Staff of Ice
The Staff of Ice is one of four buildable elemental staffs in the Apocalypse DLC map Origins. The Staff of Ice shoots blasts of Ice when fired, and similarly to the Winter's Howl, will slow them down, eventually freezing and cracking apart. Once upgraded to the Ull's Arrow, it functions the same as its previous version, however its blast of ice has more range and a wider area of effect. You can also hold down the firing button in order to charge it up, at the cost of more ammo per charged shot. When charged and released, it fires an initial blast of ice, then expands in a circle, attracting nearby zombies towards it and instantly freezing and killing them. The blast of ice doesn't instantly kill zombies, so before freezing and shattering the zombie may have a chance to hit you, before it shatters. After upgrading, it gains a secondary "attachment" called Sekhmet's Vigor which when activated by pressing right on the D-Pad, will cause the player to flip the staff and use the bottom end. This can be used to revive a downed player by "shooting" him directly. The "vigor" is a slow-moving ball, which will travel in a straight line. It is recommended to make your shots count, because it is very easy to miss with this weapon. How to Obtain There are three parts of the staff that the player must get, along with an elemental gem needed in order to craft the staff. Unlike the other staffs where the player needs to reach certain areas and do certain things in order to obtain these parts, the player must instead dig up the parts using the Shovel in the dig locations around the map, but the parts will only appear when the weather is snowy. It is also random when the dig locations will unearth a staff part, meaning that it is all up to luck. In order to reach the elemental gem in The Crazy Place, one must first find the blue record and the Gramophone. The blue record is always located in the bunker right next to Generator 2, on one of the shelves or on the table in front of the entrance. The Gramophone is always located inside the Excavation Zone, on the floor. Once both are obtained, the player must go into the Ice tunnel, located between the church and Generator 6, and hold the action button on the table at the end of the tunnel to open the gateway to The Crazy Place. Once there, the player must go to the Ice "pedestal" and hold the action button to receive the ice elemental gem. Once all the items are gathered, the player must go down the ramp into the excavation zone and place the gramophone on the table when having the black record, which can be found around the outside of the excavation zone, with one location being right next to the excavation zone sign. After a few seconds, the floor around the center pillar will collapse into a staircase, which will lead you to the bottom. At the very bottom, the player must go to the statue that corresponds with the element and craft the staff there, after which any player can pick up the staff via the action button. Upgrading the Staff Once the player has picked up the Staff of Ice, he/she must return to The Crazy Place, and solve the riddle located on the Ice part of the map, where the gateway back is located. There is a panel of ice nearby, which will have dots in various patterns which are base-3 representations of numbers, along with panels made of stone and ice floating in the air above the Ice gateway zone which have symbols which are base-4 representations of numbers. The player must use the pattern shown on the ice panel, in order to determine which stone panel to shoot with the Staff of Ice, which when done correctly will cause the stone to flip around. To complete the riddle, all 6 stone panels must be flipped. There are possibly 11 different patterns which can appear on the ice panel, but only 6 will appear, one for each stone tablet. Ice_Staff_Challenge_Symbols_Key_1_Origins_BOII.png|Symbol Combination 1 Ice_Staff_Challenge_Symbols_Key_2_Origins_BOII.png|Symbol Combination 2 Ice_Staff_Challenge_Symbols_Key_3_Origins_BOII.png|Symbol Combination 3 Ice_Staff_Challenge_Symbols_Key_4_Origins_BOII.png|Symbol Combination 4 Ice_Staff_Challenge_Symbols_Key_5_Origins_BOII.png|Symbol Combination 5 Ice_Staff_Challenge_Symbols_Key_6_Origins_BOII.png|Symbol Combination 6 The player must now return to the original realm and locate three gravestones with water flowing out of them, shoot them with the Staff of Ice, causing it to freeze, then shoot it with another weapon, causing it to explode. The three locations of the gravestones are: *To the right of the MP40 near Generator 4 *In the giant mech's right footprint leading into the trenches, facing the excavation zone next to a mounted body *On top of the small hill when going right from the back exit of the bunker next to Generator 2, next to the downed mech's hand Ice_Staff_Challenge_Water_Tombstone_1_Origins_BOII.png Ice_Staff_Challenge_Water_Tombstone_2_Origins_BOII.png Ice_Staff_Challenge_Water_Tombstone_3_Origins_BOII.png The player now has to return to the bottom of the Excavation Zone, where there is now an Ice ball. After aligning the disks above the orb via the four switches in the lower section so that all the gems are blue, the player with the Staff of Ice must shoot the ball, which will cause the ball to fly into the air and return to The Crazy Place. Once done, the player must now go back to The Crazy Place, where the staff can be placed onto the Ice pedestal. The player must kill zombies nearby the Ice pedestal, so that the zombie "souls" get attracted to the staff and power it up. After killing a fair amount of zombies, an audio cue by Samantha will indicate to the player that the staff is powered up and upgraded to Ull's Arrow. The staff can now be picked up by any player. Trivia *The Staff of Ice is named after Ull, a Norse God commonly associated with winter. *If the player has the Staff of Ice and dives to prone while using PhD Flopper, the explosion will freeze the zombies for a short period of time. *The Staff of Ice is Nikolai's favorite staff, as stated through a few of his quotes. *The Staff of Ice is similar to the Winter's Howl. However, it has more ammo and is more powerful. *The Staff of Ice, when upgraded to Ull's Arrow, gets a powerful melee attack which is a one-hit kill to about round 16.